Friday, April 13, 2012

Good evening, loyal citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. I hope that many of you are gathered around your community's television set and are listening to me with your full attention, for tonight I bring you both good news and bad news. Now before you grow too apprehensive, allow me to say that the bad news has nothing to do with your sadly meager food rations. Unfortunately neither does the good news.

Now as I'm sure you're aware, since today is the occasion of a rare half-day holiday, we are in the midst of celebrating the centennial of the birth of my paternal grandfather, the revered Kim Il-sung, the man you refer to as Eternal President. Which is something of a misnomer, but seeing as the only other leader any of you have ever known was my dad, I'll let it pass.

The reason you have been summoned to gather around your community television set is to reveal to you the reason why your rice sacks have admittedly been on the skimpy side over the past eighteen months. My father - the man you inexplicably referred to as Beloved Leader - had this burning desire to buy something special to properly commemorate the hundredth birthday of his father - a rocket ship mighty enough to launch an Earth observation satellite... Yeah, I know, it doesn't seem like a high priority for a starving country to me either, but you know my dad, he probably thought he could mount a bomb on it.

Long story short, I summoned you to congregate around your communal television set this evening in the hope that I could share with you glorious video footage of the launch of our mighty rocket ship, and the good news is that I shall do so right now. Roll it, Jon-sun.

Okay, this is the countdown... three, two, one... blast off! Wow, take a look at those flames! That's impressive isn't it? You could cook a weenie in those flames if you were fortunate enough to have one... Slowly thrusting upwards into the cloudless sky and bit by bit gaining speed and altitude.. and now it rises so high that it's just a small silver needle in the sky and... and now it's much easier to see because it just tragically blew the hell up in a spectacular explosion and is falling into the ocean much like a metal pelican...

That's the bad news... It's like we just took your lunch money for the next year and flushed it down the toilet... That's a western device that most of you have probably never seen or even heard of because unfortunately my dad and my granddad had other priorities, such as nuclear missiles and Earth observation satellites... Or as dad would say 'deadry nucrear missurs and Earth observation satturites'. The old man never could master the English language, which put him at somewhat of a disadvantage when it came to saber rattling.

Now I realize that many of you are listening to my words with utter disbelief because you have never before in your brainwashed life so much as considered the concept of a Korean failure. From what my father and his father regularly assured you, we just sailed from great victory to great victory and our nation had never experienced failure in our entire history. You've seen our triumphs on your community television sets, and I guess you believe what you just witnessed to be an inexplicable hoax. That's my granddad's fault, I guess, since he's the one who introduced them to the people as 'magic boxes of truth', but really, as you just saw, the televisions will play pretty much anything we want them to.

The fact is that Korea has had more than our share of failures in the past. Did you know that there are countries in this world where the people aren't starving? It's true, but since you've always been told we're the Land of Plenty, I'm sure that's a difficult concept. I'm just hoping to initiate a little minor course correction here, so don't fret too much about it. And have yourself a very merry Kim Il-sung Day.